Advances in Crowdfunding: Research

and Practice 1st ed. Edition Rotem

Shneor
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/advances-in-crowdfunding-research-and-practice-1st-
ed-edition-rotem-shneor/
Edited by
Rotem Shneor
Liang Zhao
Bjørn-Tore Flåten

Advances in
Crowdfunding
Research and Practice
Advances in Crowdfunding
 Rotem Shneor • Liang Zhao
Bjørn-Tore Flåten
Editors

Advances
in Crowdfunding
Research and Practice
Editors
Rotem Shneor Liang Zhao
School of Business and Law School of Business and Law
University of Agder University of Agder
Kristiansand, Norway Kristiansand, Norway

Bjørn-Tore Flåten
School of Business and Law
University of Agder
Kristiansand, Norway

ISBN 978-3-030-46308-3    ISBN 978-3-030-46309-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46309-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication.
Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative Commons
licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s
Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the
permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
In loving memory of Prof. Andreas Wyller Falkenberg, an inspirational
friend, colleague, and mentor.
 Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the support of the University of Agder’s
Library grant for Open Access Publications, as well as the management of
the University of Agder’s School of Business and Law for their unequivo-
cal and generous support in making this book project a reality.

vii
 Contents

1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances in

Crowdfunding Research and Practice  1
Rotem Shneor, Liang Zhao, and Bjørn-Tore Flåten

Part I The Current State of Crowdfunding  19

2 Crowdfunding Models, Strategies, and Choices Between

Them 21
Rotem Shneor

3 The Global Status of the Crowdfunding Industry 43

Tania Ziegler, Rotem Shneor, and Bryan Zheng Zhang

4 Lending Crowdfunding: Principles and Market

Development 63
Tania Ziegler and Rotem Shneor

ix
x Contents

5 Equity Crowdfunding: Principles and Investor Behaviour 93

Anna Lukkarinen

6 Reward-Based Crowdfunding Research and Practice119

Liang Zhao and Sunghan Ryu

7 Donation Crowdfunding: Principles and Donor Behaviour145

Liang Zhao and Rotem Shneor

8 Ethical Considerations in Crowdfunding161

Rotem Shneor and Stina Torjesen

9 Legal Institutions, Social Capital, and Financial

Crowdfunding: A Multilevel Perspective183
Wanxiang Cai, Friedemann Polzin, and Erik Stam

Part II Crowdfunding in Historical Context 207

10 History of Crowdfunding in the Context of

Ever-Changing Modern Financial Markets209
Aki Kallio and Lasse Vuola

11 The FinTech Industry: Crowdfunding in Context241

Paul Griffiths

Part III Crowdfunding in Geographic Context 271

12 Crowdfunding in China: Turmoil of Global Leadership273

Liang Zhao and Yuanqing Li
 Contents xi

13 Crowdfunding Prospects in New Emerging Markets: The

Cases of India and Bangladesh297
Krishnamurthy Suresh, Stine Øyna, and Ziaul Haque Munim

14 Crowdfunding in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges319

Emmanuel James Chao, Priscilla Serwaah, Prince Baah-Peprah,
and Rotem Shneor

15 Israeli Crowdfunding: A Reflection of Its Entrepreneurial

Culture341
Kalanit Efrat, Shaked Gilboa, and Daniel Berliner

16 Crowdfunding in Europe: Between Fragmentation and

Harmonization373
Karsten Wenzlaff, Ana Odorović, Tania Ziegler, and
Rotem Shneor

Part IV Crowdfunding in Sectoral Context 391

17 Crowdfunding Sustainability393
Natalia Maehle, Pia Piroschka Otte, and Natalia Drozdova

18 Crowdfunding in the Cultural Industries423

Anders Rykkja, Natalia Maehle, Ziaul Haque Munim, and
Rotem Shneor

19 Civic Crowdfunding: Four Perspectives on the Definition

of Civic Crowdfunding441
Karsten Wenzlaff
xii Contents

Part V The Future of Crowdfunding 473

20 Crowdfunding Education: Objectives, Content, Pedagogy,

and Assessment475
Rotem Shneor and Bjørn-Tore Flåten

21 The Future of Crowdfunding Research and Practice499

Rotem Shneor, Bjørn-Tore Flåten, and Liang Zhao

Index 521
 Notes on Contributors

Prince Baah-Peprah is a doctoral research fellow at the University of

Agder’s (UiA) School of Business and Law and a member of the
Crowdfunding Research Centre at UiA. He holds a master’s degree in
International Management from UiA. His research interests lie in mar-
keting strategies in crowdfunding while examining regional and contex-
tual heterogeneities. He currently focuses on how the involvement of
experts in the development stage of crowdfunding campaigns reduces
risk and enhance project success. Based on his background in manage-
ment, accounting and finance, he has previously researched entrepre-
neurial financing and private equity investment in emerging markets.
Daniel Berliner is a doctoral research fellow at the Crowdfunding
Research Centre at the University of Agder, Norway. His research inter-
ests include investor decisions, crowdfunding and alternative financing,
especially in the context of high-technology new ventures. His PhD
research focuses on entrepreneurship and alternative financing models.
Previous to his PhD studies, he acquired extensive experience working
with various high-technology Israeli ventures in the field of branding and
strategy.
Wanxiang Cai is a doctoral research fellow at Utrecht University School
of Economics (U.S.E.). He holds an MSc in Business Administration

xiii
xiv Notes on Contributors

from Chongqing University (CQU), School of Economics and Business

Administration. In his research Wanxiang analyses to what extent and
how social capital and formal institutions affect individual crowdfunding
campaigns, transaction volumes on platforms and the development of
the financial crowdfunding market. Wanxiang is also affiliated with the
European Centre for Alternative Finance. His work has been presented at
leading conferences in the field of entrepreneurial finance.
Emmanuel James Chao is currently a senior lecturer and a head of
resource and incubation centre at Mzumbe University-Tanzania. Further,
he is the founder and chair of the annual International Conference of
Business and Management in Emerging Markets (ICBMEM) and an
associate researcher at the Centre for Crowdfunding Research at the
University of Agder. He holds a PhD in International Management and
MSc in International Business from the University of Agder in Norway.
He has published in a wide variety of international outlets such as
International Business Research, Journal of Global Marketing, Journal of
Business to Business Relations, Journal of Knowledge Management and
Practice among others.
Natalia Drozdova is a doctoral research fellow at NHH, Norwegian
School of Economics, where she earlier graduated with a master’s degree
in International Business. Natalia’s research interests include crowdfund-
ing, sharing economy, collaborative consumption and online movements.
Kalanit Efrat is Senior Lecturer of International Business, Marketing
and Entrepreneurship at the Ruppin Academic Centre, Israel. Her
research interests include international small and medium enterprises
(SMEs), collaborative strategies, information and knowledge-based capa-
bilities and crowdfunding. Her articles were published in the Journal of
World Business, Technovation, International Marketing Review, International
Business Review and Journal of Business Research among others.
Bjørn-Tore Flåten is an associate professor at the University of Agder
School of Business and Law. He holds a PhD in International Management
from UiA and an MSc from the Norwegian School of Economics. His
research interests revolve around strategic management of knowledge
work and entrepreneurship, with focus on knowledge sharing and
 Notes on Contributors xv

internet-­enabled collaboration within and beyond the boundaries of the

firm. Flåten has contributed with book chapters to research-focused
edited books, as well as published in journals such as Information and
Organization, Journal of e-Business and the Norwegian Journal of Geography.
Currently, Flåten is serving as the head of Department of Management
and as the Vice Dean of the School of Business and Law. Flåten is also
heading the university’s Centre for Entrepreneurship. Through the cen-
tre, Flåten has also launched UiA Innovation, whose objective is com-
mercialization of research from faculty and students.
Shaked Gilboa is a Senior Lecturer of Customer Experience,
Organizational Development and Human Resource Management at the
Ruppin Academic Centre, Israel. Her research interests include customer
experience among mall shoppers, small businesses’ customers, city resi-
dents and crowdfunding’s creators and backers. Her articles were pub-
lished in the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, Cities and International Business Review among others.
Paul Griffiths is the academic director of postgrads in Banking and
Fintech at the EM Normandie Business School. Prior to becoming a full-­
time academic, Paul spent many years in leadership positions at global
management consulting firms, serving boards of blue-chip companies,
particularly in the financial services sector. He specializes in management
of intangible assets such as intellectual capital and related technologies
such as artificial intelligence and Fintech. Having lived and worked in
multiple countries, he defines himself as multicultural. Paul brings to his
lectures the hands-on experience of having started up from scratch con-
sulting firms in eight countries. His interests in research bridge across the
fields of Fintech and knowledge management and the development of
knowledge networks, particularly in banking. He holds a master’s degree
in engineering, has been a Humphrey Fellow (Fulbright Commission) at
the University of Minnesota and holds a doctorate in business adminis-
tration. He is a prolific writer in professional and academic publications
and a renowned speaker at conferences and seminars.
Aki Kallio holds LLM degree from the University of Helsinki and cur-
rently serves as the Managing Compliance Officer (Corporates &
xvi Notes on Contributors

Institutions, C&I) at the Danske Bank A/S Finland Branch. Kallio is a

member of Extended Group Compliance, C&I Compliance and C&I
Finland Management Teams. Previously Kallio worked as a Ministerial
Adviser in the Financial Markets Department of the Ministry of Finance
of Finland (being responsible, among others, for drafting and entering
into force the Finnish Crowdfunding Act and acting as a co-head of the
Financial Market Department’s Fintech—expert group). In addition, he
acted as a Finnish representative of the European Commission’s informal
expert group—“European Crowdfunding Stakeholder Forum (ECSF)”.
He is also a co-author of first published book on crowdfunding and fin-
tech in Finland (in Finnish: Joukkorahoitus, ). Prior to joining the Ministry
of Finance of Finland he worked for two leading Finnish law firms and as
a corporate counsel.
Yuanqing Li is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Dominican
University. She graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy in Business
Administration (Entrepreneurship Focus) from the University of Texas
Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Her undergraduate degree in English
Education (Henan Normal University, 2010) and master’s degrees in
both Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (Minzu University
of China, 2012) and Management (MBA UTRGV, 2015) have prepared
her to teach and conduct research in diverse interests (including entrepre-
neurship especially in crowdfunding, cross-cultural communication and
organizational behaviour).
Anna Lukkarinen is a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University
School of Science in Finland. Her research interests lie in equity crowd-
funding, entrepreneurial finance and new ventures. She currently focuses
on developing an improved understanding of investor behaviour and
decision making in equity crowdfunding, which she does in close col-
laboration with crowdfunding practitioners. With work background in
management consulting at McKinsey & Company and investment bank-
ing at Citigroup, she strongly believes in the mutual benefit potential of
fostering linkages between academia and the industry.
Natalia Maehle is an associate professor at the Western Norway
University of Applied Sciences, Mohn Centre for Innovation and
 Notes on Contributors xvii

Regional Development. She holds a PhD from NHH, Norwegian School

of Economics. Maehle’s research interests include digital business models,
innovation, consumer behaviour and branding. She is currently leading a
Norwegian part of the international research project supported by the
Horizon 2020 ERA-net Cofund SUSFOOD2. Maehle also leads several
work packages in an international research project on crowdfunding. She
has an excellent track record of publications in the highly ranked interna-
tional peer-reviewed journals.
Ziaul Haque Munim is Associate Professor of Maritime Logistics at the
University of South-Eastern Norway. His research interests include mari-
time economics and logistics, supply chain management and interna-
tional business. He holds a PhD in International Management from the
University of Agder and an MSc in Supply Chain Management from the
Vienna University of Economics and Business. His publications have
appeared in leading journals such as the Journal of Business Research, Asia
Pacific Journal of Management, Resources, Conservation & Recycling and
others. He received the Best Paper Award at the IAME 2016 conference
and the Young Researcher Best Paper Award at the IAME 2018 conference.
Ana Odorović is a PhD research fellow in the Graduate School in Law
and Economics at the University of Hamburg in Germany. Her thesis
deals with the question of overcoming asymmetric information in the
crowdfunding market from a law and economics perspective. She is also
a research affiliate at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. In
2018, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford. She holds
an LLM degree in business law from the Panthéon-Assas University (Paris
2) and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Belgrade,
where she also teaches economics at the Law school.
Pia Piroschka Otte is a senior researcher at Ruralis, Institute for Rural
and Regional Research. In addition, she works as a researcher at NTNU
Sustainability within the climate change cluster. Pia has an interdisciplin-
ary background with a PhD in Political Science and a master’s degree in
Development Studies from NTNU. Her work focuses on social science
research addressing energy transitions, climate change and rural/urban
development. She is currently leading an international research project
xviii Notes on Contributors

that tests the feasibility of offsetting CO2 emissions from transport

through crowdfunding of climate-friendly technologies on local farms.
Stine Øyna is an associate professor at The School of Business and Law,
University of Agder, Norway. She holds a PhD in International Business
from the same university. Her research interests lie in the intersection
between international business and entrepreneurship, with a current
focus on born globals, internationalizing SMEs and entrepreneurship
education. She has publications in journals such as International Business
Review and International Studies of Management and Organization. She
received the Lazaridis Institute SMEs & International Entrepreneurship
Best Paper Prize at the EIBA 2018 conference.
Friedemann Polzin is an assistant professor at Utrecht University
School of Economics (U.S.E.), Sustainable Finance Lab (SFL) and
European Centre for Alternative Finance (ECAF). He holds a PhD from
EBS Business School and an MSc in Business Administration from the
University of Jena. Friedemann investigates the financing of innovation
and entrepreneurship as well as corresponding sources such as banking,
venture capital or crowdfunding. Another part of his research looks at the
policy environment required for a transition towards a green economy.
His work has been published in major innovation, entrepreneurship and
sustainability journals.
Anders Rykkja is a doctoral research fellow at the Inland Norway
University of Applied Sciences. He holds an MA in Music Business
Management from the University of Westminster. Anders currently
works on his doctoral thesis, which is on the emergence, adoption and
usage of cultural crowdfunding as a supplemental financing mechanism
in the cultural and creative industries. Over the last few years as a team
member of Knowledge Works, the Norwegian knowledge centre for the
cultural and creative industries, he has published reports on a variety of
topics, including music industry export, festivals and cultural policy
intervention schemes.
Sunghan Ryu is an assistant professor in USC-SJTU Institute of
Cultural and Creative Industry at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He
holds a PhD in IT management from the College of Business, KAIST. His
 Notes on Contributors xix

research interests include IT innovations in cultural and creative domains

and effective information systems applications in the entrepreneurial
context. His current research interests revolve around crowdfunding and
other alternative finance practices. His works appeared in academic jour-
nals including Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Electronic Markets
and Electronic Commerce Research & Applications and were presented at
prestigious conferences such as ICIS and HICSS.
Priscilla Serwaah is a doctoral research fellow at the School of Business
and Law, University of Agder. She previously worked as a teaching assis-
tant at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
(KNUST), Ghana. During her master’s at the University of Agder, she
worked as a consultant for Mechatronics Innovation Laboratory (MIL),
located in Grimstad. Her research focuses on entrepreneurial/alternative
finance and gender dynamics in crowdfunding.
Rotem Shneor is an associate professor at the University of Agder’s
School of Business and Law and serves as the academic director of the
university’s Centre of Entrepreneurship, as well as the founder and head
of the university’s Crowdfunding Research Centre. He holds a PhD in
International Management from UiA and a master’s degree from the
Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). He established the Nordic
Crowdfunding Alliance of platforms, co-founded and currently serves on
the board of the Norwegian Crowdfunding Association. In addition, he
is serving as an affiliate researcher at the Cambridge University Centre for
Alternative Finance and is a co-author to its annual reports. His research
covers crowdfunding success, behaviour and motivations, internet mar-
keting and cognitive aspects of entrepreneurship. He has a record of fif-
teen years in teaching, researching and supporting entrepreneurship. He
has published in academic journals (including JBR, ERD, IJOEM, CCM,
BJM, JPBM, EEP, and JPM), trade magazines, as well as contributed
several chapters to research-focused edited books and textbooks.
Erik Stam is Professor of Strategy, Organization & Entrepreneurship at
Utrecht University School of Economics (U.S.E.). He holds a PhD and
MSc from Utrecht University. His research lies in the intersection of eco-
nomics, geography and government policy and is one of the world’s lead-
xx Notes on Contributors

ing scholars in entrepreneurship. Erik has co-authored more than 50

academic articles, edited and contributed to numerous books. He is affili-
ated with several universities around the global and he also regularly con-
sults governments and entrepreneurship organizations.
Krishnamurthy Suresh is an academic associate at the Indian Institute
of Management (IIM), Bangalore, India. He is also a research associate at
the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), University of
Cambridge Judge Business School. He has authored three alternative
finance industry reports with CCAF. His research interests lie in the areas
of small and medium enterprise (SME) financing, crowdfunding, new
and alternative financing models for start-ups and SMEs, as well as regu-
latory frameworks. He is currently pursuing his PhD from India and was
a visiting fellow (Pavate) at the University of Cambridge Judge Business
School (CJBS).
Stina Torjesen is an associate professor at the University of Agder’s
School of Business and Law, where she teaches courses in Business Ethics.
Stina holds an MPhil and DPhil in International Relations from the
University of Oxford. She served previously as a senior research fellow at
the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and worked for the
United Nations in Kazakhstan. She has also worked as a project manager
in the sustainability consultancy SIGLA. Her publications include con-
tributions to edited books volumes and articles in academic journals (e.g.
IJSD, CSD, CAS, etc.).
Lasse Vuola holds LLM from the University of Lapland and California,
Berkeley, and MSc from the University of Jyväskylä. He is serving as
CEO and co-founder of the Finnish loan-based crowdfunding platform
Fundu Ltd, which employs approximately 20 people in Finland. He is
also a co-author of the first published book on crowdfunding and fintech
in Finland (in Finnish: Joukkorahoitus). Vuola has also worked as a lawyer
for many years in Finland’s largest business law firm, most recently
employed by a law firm Castrén & Snellman Oy. In addition, he has
invested in several start-up companies and implemented many coopera-
tion projects with start-up and growth companies, providing him with
comprehensive understanding of practical corporate finance
bottlenecks.
 Notes on Contributors xxi

Karsten Wenzlaff is a PhD research fellow and lecturer in Crowdfunding

and Alternative Finance in the Chair for Digital Markets at the University
of Hamburg in Germany. He is the co-author of the Alternative Finance
Benchmarking Report of the Centre for Alternative Finance at the
University of Cambridge and a research affiliate in the European Centre
for Alternative Finance at the University of Utrecht. His research focus is
alternative finance, corporate crowdfunding and civic crowdfunding,
self-regulation of FinTechs and Fintech ecosystems. Karsten has been an
expert to the Committee on the Digital Agenda of the German Parliament.
Bryan Zheng Zhang is the co-founder and executive director of the
Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the Judge Business School,
University of Cambridge. His research examines the accumulation and
allocation of capital for start-ups and SMEs through alternative circuits
of finance in a geographical and comparative context. Since 2013, Bryan
has led and co-authored some of the most influential industry reports on
the state of alternative finance both at national and international levels.
He has advised and collaborated with numerous institutions and organi-
zations including the Financial Conduct Authority, the British Business
Bank, the Department of International Development, the European
Commission, the World Bank, Oxfam and Unilever. He is also a research
fellow in Finance at Cambridge Judge Business School and a senior fel-
low at the Financial Innovation Lab. Bryan was trained in economic
geography and public policy at Cambridge and Oxford Universities.
Liang Zhao is a postdoc research fellow at the University of Agder’s
School of Business and Law. He is also a research fellow in China’s Public
Sector Economy Research Centre (CPSERC) and China-Israel
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre (CIEIC) at Jilin University in
China. In addition, he was an affiliate researcher at the Cambridge
University Centre for Alternative Finance. Dr. Liang studies innovation
and entrepreneurship, with a special emphasis on reward-based crowd-
funding. His research interests include the interactive mechanism of
crowdfunding platforms, backers and entrepreneurs; e-trust and backer
behaviour; crowdfunding community formation and marketing of
crowdfunding campaigns. His research output includes journal articles,
book chapters and industry reports. Besides, He also writes popular arti-
xxii Notes on Contributors

cles for global FinTech web media such as Crowdfund Insider and
Techfoliance. He received his PhD from Amsterdam Business School at
the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and his cum laude bach-
elor and master’s degrees from Jilin University in China.
Tania Ziegler is the lead in Global Benchmarking at the Cambridge
Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) and manages the centre’s alterna-
tive finance benchmarking programme which spans Europe, the Americas,
Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Africa. She has authored more than
a dozen industry reports since joining the CCAF. She is an expert in SME
finance and leads the Centre’s work on SME Access to Finance in Latin
America. She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics (LSE)
and a BA from Loyola College in Maryland. Tania is a 2010 Fulbright
Scholar and has spent a period at the International University of Business
and Economics in Beijing, China.
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Win-win dynamics in crowdfunding 3

Fig. 1.2 The crowdfunding campaign process 6
Fig. 2.1 Generic organizational fundraiser model choice framework 32
Fig. 2.2 Extended organizational fundraiser model choice framework 33
Fig. 2.3 Consumer fundraiser model choice framework 33
Fig. 3.1 Global volumes 2013–2017 (USD) 45
Fig. 3.2 Global volumes by top models 2017 (USD) 46
Fig. 3.3 Total 2017 volumes by region (million USD).
(Source: Ziegler et al. 2020) 47
Fig. 3.4 Crowdfunding per capita volumes by GDP per
capita 2017—Lead markets 50
Fig. 3.5 Regional volumes—Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America
& the Caribbean (USD). (Source: Ziegler et al. 2020) 55
Fig. 4.1 Traditional P2P lending model. (Source: Bank for International
Settlements and Financial Stability Board (2017). Market
structure, business models and financial stability implications
Bank for International Settlements. The full publication is
available on the BIS website free of charge: www.bis.org) 69
Fig. 4.2 Balance sheet lending model. (Source: Bank for International
Settlements and Financial Stability Board (2017). Market
structure, business models and financial stability implications
Bank for International Settlements. The full publication is
available on the BIS website free of charge: www.bis.org) 70

xxiii
xxiv List of Figures

Fig. 4.3 Proportion of global volume from key crowdlending models 73

Fig. 4.4 Sources of UK SME finance 2012–2018 (in billion GBP) 77
Fig. 4.5 Institutional vs. retail investors in crowdlending (globally)
in 2018 83
Fig. 5.1 Equity crowdfunding volumes (million EUR). (Source:
Based on figures reported in Garvey et al. 2017; Zhang et al.
2018; Ziegler et al. 2018a, b, c, d, 2019) 94
Fig. 5.2 Typical equity crowdfunding process under the all-or-noth-
ing model. (Source: Modified from Lukkarinen et al. 2016) 95
Fig. 6.1 The four-dimension framework of reward-based
crowdfunding122
Fig. 9.1 Interactions between financial crowdfunding and institutions
at macro and micro levels 192
Fig. 9.2 Interactions between financial crowdfunding and institutions
at macro, meso, and micro levels 199
Fig. 10.1 Timeline—Brief history of crowdfunding 224
Fig. 11.1 The effect of the 2007–2008 crisis 251
Fig. 11.2 The effect of major technological breakthroughs on FinTech
and banks 254
Fig. 11.3 Effects of social changes on banks and FinTech 255
Fig. 11.4 Evolution of the relationship between banks and FinTechs 263
Fig. 13.1 Indian crowdfunding market volumes by model
(2013–2017). (∗Based on figures from Ziegler et al. [2018]) 301
Fig. 15.1 Market volume by country for 2015 (in $ million). (Source:
Based on figure from Ziegler et al. 2018a, b) 357
Fig. 15.2 Market volume per capita by country for 2016 (in $ mil-
lion). (Source: Based on figures from Ziegler et al. 2018a, b;
World Bank Data for Israel 2019) 357
Fig. 15.3 Headstart (rewards and donations campaigns) funding
volumes 2012–2018 (in $ million). (Source: Based on data
received from the company) 363
Fig. 15.4 Headstart (rewards and donations campaigns) success rates
2012–2018. (Source: Based on data received from the
company)363
Fig. 16.1 Alternative finance volume per capita versus GDP per capita
2017. (Source: Ziegler et al. 2019) 377
Fig. 16.2 Cross-border flows in European crowdfunding markets
2017. (Source: Ziegler et al. 2019) 380
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 An extended CCAF global crowdfunding typology 24

Table 2.2 Main crowdfunding model characteristics 29
Table 3.1 Top thirty national markets by volume in 2017 49
Table 3.2 Top crowdfunding models by region 56
Table 4.1 Global alternative lending in USD billion (inclusive of
China figures) 73
Table 4.2 Global alternative lending in USD billion (exclusive of
China figures) 74
Table 4.3 Crowdlending models 2018 by model and region (in USD
billion)75
Table 5.1 Comparison of different forms of early-stage equity
financing104
Table 8.1 Ethical pitfalls for platforms 170
Table 8.2 Ethical pitfalls for fundraisers 173
Table 8.3 Ethical pitfalls for funders 175
Table 8.4 Ethical pitfall for regulators 177
Table 11.1 The FinTech I/O framework 259
Table 11.2 Sample from the repository of FinTechs 260
Table 13.1 Alternative finance volume in South Asian countries 298
Table 13.2 List of popular donation and reward-based crowdfunding
platforms in India 302
Table 13.3 List of popular equity crowdfunding platforms in India 304

xxv
xxvi List of Tables

Table 13.4 List of RBI registered peer-to-peer lending platforms

in India 306
Table 13.5 Crowdfunding platforms in Bangladesh 311
Table 15.1 Israel’s three equity-based crowdfunding models 359
Table 17.1 Dimensions of sustainable development (to be achieved by
2030) in relation to SDGs 398
Table 17.2 Examples of the projects on Platform A 409
Table 17.3 Examples of the projects on Platform B 411
Table 17.4 Examples of the projects on Platform C 413
Table 17.5 Examples of the projects on Platform D 416
Table 19.1 Overview and typology of civic crowdfunding platforms
(selection)443
Table 19.2 Typology of goods 448
Table 19.3 Benefits of civic crowdfunding for supporters 455
Table 20.1 Crowdfunding course modules and topics 482
Table 20.2 Crowdfunding course grading form 488
 1
Introduction: From Fundamentals
to Advances in Crowdfunding Research
and Practice
Rotem Shneor, Liang Zhao, and Bjørn-Tore Flåten

Crowdfunding is a method to obtain money from large audiences, where

each individual provides a small amount, instead of raising large sums
from a small group of sophisticated investors (Belleflamme et al. 2014).
Such pooling of contributions from multiple backers (Short et al. 2017)
is done via the Internet, and often without standard financial intermedi-
aries (Mollick 2014). This phenomenon finds its origin in the application
of crowdsourcing principles to the practices of fundraising while creating
new community-enabled financing channels (Schwienbacher and
Larralde 2012) for a wide variety of projects including commercial, cul-
tural, humanitarian, social, political, environmental, and technological
projects to name a few.
What started initially as sporadic independent fundraising initiatives,
has transferred into a proliferation of crowdfunding-dedicated platforms,
which served as market makers bringing fundraisers and funders to inter-
act via a common trusted system. Indeed, research on the state of the

R. Shneor (*) • L. Zhao • B.-T. Flåten

School of Business and Law, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
e-mail: rotem.shneor@uia.no; liang.zhao@uia.no; bjorn-tore.flaten@uia.no

© The Author(s) 2020 1

R. Shneor et al. (eds.), Advances in Crowdfunding,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46309-0_1
2 R. Shneor et al.

global industry, based on data collected from over a thousand platforms,

shows that in 2017 global alternative finance volumes (covering all
crowdfunding models) reached USD 371 billion, growing by 42% from
2016 volumes (Ziegler et al. 2019). Furthermore, when excluding the
unique context of China, global volumes have grown by 28% from USD
47 billion in 2016 to USD 60 billion in 2017, growing by a further 48%
to USD 89 billion in 2018 (Ziegler et al. 2020).
However, the term “crowdfunding” is an umbrella term reflecting a
wide variety of fundraising models. At the most basic of levels, these
models can be distinguished by their underlying logic either intermediat-
ing investments or non-investment financing. Thus far, research and
practice have distinguished between four core models, including crowd-­
lending, equity, reward, and donation crowdfunding (Mollick 2014;
Belleflamme et al. 2014). The first two capture the dominant investment
types of models, and the latter the dominant non-investment types of
models. Later in the book, we provide a detailed overview of crowdfund-
ing models in use, their characteristics and unique aspects.
However, for introductory purposes one can highlight the four core
models by building on the definitions provided by the Cambridge
University Centre for Alternative Finance (hereafter “CCAF”) in its
annual reports (e.g. Ziegler et al. 2019): (1) Crowd-lending is when indi-
vidual or institutional backers provide loans to borrowers while expecting
the repayment of the principle and a set interest within a predefined
timeframe. (2) Equity crowdfunding refers to backers buying an owner-
ship stake in an organization. (3) Reward crowdfunding means that back-
ers provide funding in exchange for non-monetary rewards, most
frequently in the form of pre-purchased products or services. And, (4)
donation crowdfunding is a provision of funding based on philanthropic
or civic motivations without expectation of material rewards.
In this chapter, we introduce the fundamental concepts and dynamics
of crowdfunding, which will serve as a common understanding for the
discussions in the remaining chapters of this book. Here we present the
key stakeholders in crowdfunding engagements, as well as the crowd-
funding process and stages. This is followed by a brief introduction to
each of the book’s chapters while highlighting their main insights and
contributions.
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 3

Crowdfunding Stakeholders
At the core of crowdfunding practice lies an expectation for a “win-win”
game, where all parties enjoy various benefits from their involvement in
the process, as highlighted in Fig. 1.1. The three main parties to crowd-
funding transactions include the fundraiser, the backer, and the platform.
Accordingly, in the context of crowdfunding, a Fundraiser can be defined
as any individual or organization that makes a public call for the financ-
ing of project(s) with particular purpose(s). Literature has referred to
them as either “fundraisers” (e.g. Wang et al. 2018), “creators” (e.g. Ryu
and Kim 2018), or “campaigners” (e.g. Hobbs et al. 2016). Successful
fundraisers may reap benefits from the money received, as well as from
market validation outcomes that arise from wide public acceptance and
support, establishing relations with prospective customers, engaging in
cost-efficient marketing promotions, as well as collecting feedback that
may inform further product development efforts (Frydrych et al. 2014;
Thürridl and Kamleitner 2016; Wald et al. 2019).

Platform
In dir eal
di ec fo
In pp
re t r
A

ct Inc cre
pr om at
om e or
co s t
In ser ten

ot
io
U on

n
e
C

s
n

Co ecu t fa
io
en nit y

at

m re cili
S rus
ym mu log

m pa ta
ilit
tf y

un ym tio
Pa om no

ac

ity e n
C ech
T

nt
s

Patronage
Market influence
Products/Services/Investments

Fundraiser Backer
Funding
Feedback
Fans/ Customers

Fig. 1.1 Win-win dynamics in crowdfunding

4 R. Shneor et al.

Similarly, in the context of crowdfunding, a Backer can be defined as

any individual or organization that provides finance while answering a
public call for the financing of project(s) with particular purpose(s).
Literature has labelled this group inconsistently as either “backers” (e.g.
Shneor and Munim 2019), “funders” (e.g. Kang et al. 2016), “support-
ers” (e.g. Gerber and Hui 2013), as well as “donors” in donation crowd-
funding (e.g. Carvajal et al. 2012), “sponsors” in reward crowdfunding
(e.g. Ryu and Kim 2016), “investors” in equity and lending crowdfund-
ing (e.g. Dorfleitner et al. 2018), as well as “lenders” in crowd-lending
(e.g. Chemin and de Laat 2013). In terms of benefits from crowdfunding
engagements, backers enhance their levels of customer empowerment by
influencing the design of future market products, as well as their own
future consumption opportunities, while strengthening their sense of
belonging to certain groups and communities (Chaney 2019; Gerber
et al. 2012; Steigenberger 2017).
A crowdfunding platform is defined as an Internet application linking
fundraisers and their potential backers while facilitating the exchanges
between them in accordance with pre-specified conditions (Shneor and
Flåten 2015). Such intermediaries make their income in forms of cam-
paign success fees and payments for supporting services (Belleflamme
et al. 2015). However, at the same time, with each successful campaign
completed, their own reputation is enhanced while making them more
attractive facilitators for future fundraising initiatives and contribution
behaviour. Furthermore, each campaign helps the platform build its own
user base (Thies et al. 2018), both in terms of attracting new fundraisers,
as well as expanding the value of new users that registered for the purpose
of supporting a specific campaign, and converting them into prospective
funders of future campaigns as well.
An additional stakeholder, namely the public authorities, while not
directly involved in each transaction, do carry great influence on the way
the industry develops, and how each party to the crowdfunding transac-
tion interacts with the other. More specifically, regulation sets the rules
under which different models of crowdfunding may be practiced by
defining compliance requirements primarily aimed at consumer and
investor protection. However, at the same time, authorities also have
vested interests in supporting new channels for the financing of small and
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 5

medium sized businesses in their jurisdictions (as job creators and tax
payers), as well as enabling greater public contributions to civic, cultural,
educational, and environmental initiatives that may align with govern-
ment policies and agenda. Research here has both theorized about
(Kshetri 2015) and empirically showed a clear positive association
between perceived adequacy of national crowdfunding regulation and
crowdfunding volumes per capita both globally and regionally (Ziegler
et al. 2019, 2020).

The Crowdfunding Process

Crowdfunding is not a quick or short-term activity and involves a process
with multiple stages, requiring different activities and focus. One earlier
conceptualization of this process has identified two stages relevant for
backers, including pre-investment and post-investment (Macht and
Weatherston 2015). Pre-investment involves due-diligence efforts and
investment decision making based on relevant motivations. The post-­
investment stage relates to additional involvement of backers in a project
at later stages either in value adding activities, or additional investments.
From a fundraiser perspective, earlier conceptualization referred to three
stages simply defined as before, during, and after the campaign (Gerber
and Hui 2013).
Taking into consideration additional insights that have emerged in
recent years, we propose a more detailed process model including seven
distinct stages that while corresponding with earlier conceptualization,
do provide some additional clarity. Figure 1.2 presents the three core
stages and their sub-stages, while listing related activities fundraisers
should engage in during these stages. In this respect, the suggested model
represents both descriptive and normative aspects of best practice that
fundraisers are encouraged to follow for enhancing the likelihood of their
success.
First, before the campaign is formally published and open for money
collection, fundraisers usually should engage in (1) campaign planning.
During this stage, the objectives and goals of the campaign are defined,
different platforms are evaluated, one is chosen, campaign materials such
6 R. Shneor et al.

Pre-campaign During Campaign Post-campaign

Preparation Execution Relationship

Planning Creation Review Management Results Delivery Mobilization

• Provide constant updates and

• Define the project’s purpose and
• Provide constant updates and information.
needs clearly.
information. • Continue replying to comments,
• Review and learn from similar
• Reply quickly to comments, suggestions, questions and
earlier projects.
suggestions, questions and requests from the crowd.
• Chose platform.
requests from the crowd. • Deliver on campaign promises .
• Build mailing lists.
• Activate network for contribution, • In case of delays or problems,
• Warm-up existing network.
social media and WoM spread. report honestly and timely.
• Create quality content.
• Contact media, journalists, • Invest in learning about new
• Create visual elements.
bloggers, experts and influencers. members in network.
• Collect endorsements.
• Follow up on promises to • Reciprocate by contributing to
• Build social media reach out plan.
contribute + send reminders. others’ campaigns.
• Build attractive rewards/returns
• Ensure dynamic process – keep • Mobilize in spreading future
or compensation schemes.
campaign alive. campaigns and engage in R&D
• Contribute to others’ campaigns.
discussions.

Fig. 1.2 The crowdfunding campaign process

as texts and visual media elements are prepared, promotional strategies

are devised, and an execution plan with action points and deadlines can
be outlined. Next, fundraisers engage in (2) campaign creation—where
materials are uploaded to the selected platform, presence in social media
is established (e.g. Facebook page, Instagram page, Twitter account, etc.),
and initial feedback is collected from first pilot viewers. Lastly, the (3)
campaign review takes place when the submitted materials are reviewed
by platform operators, which ensures compliance with regulation, verifi-
cation of fundraiser identity, and in some cases quality of the materials
provided. When meeting requirements, the platform then approves the
campaign for publication, its information is made publicly available, and
the collection of funding is enabled.
Second, once approved, the campaign is live and during a set period
defined for the campaign, fundraisers engage in (4) campaign manage-
ment which includes promotional efforts both offline and online, and
especially via social media platforms, mobilization of network relations
takes place, and new information and updates are gradually provided to
fans and followers. At this stage, fundraisers need to focus on availability
and responsiveness to comments, suggestions, and questions from the
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 7

crowd for signalling trustworthiness as well as avoiding the loss of pro-

spective contributors. In this sense, during this stage, the backers’
decision-­making process is both triggered and supported.
This phase ends when the campaign reaches its end date, and (5) cam-
paign results are finalized. The results may vary by the scheme under which
the campaign was run (Cumming et al. 2019). Campaigns which ran
under the “all-or-nothing” schemes are paid out to fundraisers after deduc-
tion of platform fees only if they met the minimum stated sum goal. If this
goal was not met, payments made are returned to the backers that made
them. Campaigns which ran under “keep-it-all” schemes are paid out to
fundraisers after deduction of platform fees regardless of whether they
have met their minimum stated goals or not. While the former models are
relevant for non-investment crowdfunding models, in the case of invest-
ment models only the “all-or-nothing” scheme is available. However, some
platforms allow campaigns to publish a range rather than a specific sum
goal, but in such cases the sum which defines the minimum threshold of
the range applies as the basis for “all-or-nothing” pay-out to campaigners.
Finally, once the campaign is finished, a post-campaign stage unfolds.
During this period fundraisers must first (6) deliver on campaign promises
in sending promised products, services, or information, pay back loans
with stated interest, or inform investors about firm growth and finances
in case of equity investments. In case changes occur to original plans that
were specified in campaigns, and informed financial contribution deci-
sions by backers, fundraisers need to honestly inform their backers about
such changes and their implications in terms of delays or when surpassing
expectations by meeting goals earlier than planned. Furthermore, the
backers constitute a network of supporters the fundraisers can and should
(7) develop further relations with. Such backers are assets that can be mobi-
lized and tapped into in future activities, may they be additional rounds
of fundraising or business development activities such as spreading pro-
motional campaigns, or engagement in product development initiatives.
In this context, research indeed shows that fundraiser track record and
experience can lead to the creation of social capital that supports addi-
tional successful fundraising in following campaigns, however it does
have its limitations and depreciates over time if excessively used (Butticè
et al. 2017).
8 R. Shneor et al.

 owards Advances in Crowdfunding Research

T
and Practice
During the past decade interest in crowdfunding among academic schol-
ars has increased dramatically. Indeed, research has been identified as one
of the key pillars that can support both industry development and policy
making (De Buysere et al. 2012). An initial mapping of core themes in
early crowdfunding research (Moritz and Block 2016) has identified sev-
eral streams of inquiry including: analyses of fundraisers’ motivations to
adopt crowdfunding, the determinants of successful crowdfunding cam-
paigns, legal compliance, and challenges primarily with respect to invest-
ment crowdfunding models, factors impacting backer behaviour, the role
of social networks in crowdfunding, applications of signalling theory in
crowdfunding, as well as typologies of crowdfunding models. Here, while
initial strides have been made, various authors have suggested that a gap
between the available research on crowdfunding (Short et al. 2017) and
the increasing academic and public interest in it (Martínez-Climent et al.
2018) remains wide. Lists outlining relevant directions for future research
opportunities have been outlined in several literature reviews (e.g.
McKenny et al. 2017; Moritz and Block 2016; Shneor and Vik 2020).
Accordingly, in this book, we aim to contribute to improved under-
standing of crowdfunding by both taking stock of existing knowledge, as
well as presenting new aspects and insights that help us advance it. The
book includes contributions from a wide range of influential authors and
thought leaders from across the globe, representing a range of significant
research institutions. In the remainder of this chapter we provide a brief
overview of each of the chapters to follow while highlighting their main
contributions.
In the first chapter, Shneor unravels the diversity of models through
which crowdfunding manifests itself. He does so by laying a detailed
review of the characteristics of the different crowdfunding models cur-
rently in use, as well as the key premises for the use of each. Furthermore,
he suggests some of the first frameworks developed for guiding prospec-
tive fundraisers in choosing between models. Each of the frameworks is
designed for a different type of fundraisers may they be organizations or
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 9

consumers. In this respect, he provides a useful tool for guiding relevant

decision making by practitioners, and at the same time presents a frame-
work that can be tested and fine-tuned in research about such deci-
sion making.
In Chap. 2, Ziegler and colleagues take a macro level view on crowd-
funding market development dynamics and present insights from research
on the factors impacting such development trajectories highlighting the
roles of economic development, adequate regulation, and IT infrastruc-
ture, among others. They present facts and figures from national and
regional markets in a comparative manner, while accounting for the
diversity of crowdfunding models, growth trajectories, and geographical
variations. The chapter shows that crowdfunding is no longer a fringe
activity but gradually moving mainstream with substantial volumes
recorded nationally, regionally, and globally. Furthermore, it illustrates
the dominance of crowd-lending models across regions, as well as their
sub-model variations within regions.
The following four chapters examine each of the core models in greater
detail. Chapter 3 picks up from the previous chapter and delves deeper
into the understanding of the crowd-lending variant of crowdfunding.
Here, Ziegler & Shneor present the brief history of crowdlending, its
diversity of models, the current state of the industry, as well as the under-
lying mechanisms and principles guiding platform operations including
risk assessment and the matching of borrowers and lenders. These discus-
sions are supported with evidence from recent research and highlights the
benefits and risks for both lenders and borrowers while assessing the
industry development vis-à-vis earlier practices via traditional financial
institutions.
In Chap. 4, Lukkarinen provides a review of research on equity crowd-
funding. She describes the typical equity crowdfunding process, investor
characteristics, and investor motivations. Recognizing the limited due
diligence efforts of the crowd, Lukkarinen refers to the role of platforms
in evaluating and preselecting target ventures. She highlights the impor-
tance of rapidly observable campaign features and signals of venture qual-
ity in investor decision making, while also emphasizing the relevance of
experienced investors and the herding tendency of crowd investors. These
discussions are supplemented by a comparison of equity crowdfunding
10 R. Shneor et al.

investors with traditional providers of early-stage equity financing

enhancing our understanding of the commonalities and differences
among these groups of investors.
In Chap. 5, Zhao & Ryu present the reward-based crowdfunding model
and its unique aspects. This discussion is based on a four-dimensional
framework of the crowdfunding process accounting for the fundraisers,
the backers, the campaigns, and the platforms. In addition, the develop-
ment of reward-based crowdfunding is reviewed in a comparative man-
ner across different global regions, highlighting regional variances in
terms of developing trends, R&D priorities, female participation, inter-
nationalization of platforms, and risks involved. This is supplemented by
a literature review of the academic research with a focus on the two main
research streams of campaign success drivers, as well as consumer behav-
iour in reward crowdfunding.
Next, in Chap. 6, Zhao & Shneor address the current state and particu-
larities of donation-based crowdfunding, as primarily driven by philan-
thropic motivations without expectation of monetary or material rewards.
In this model intrinsic motivations dominate, and a form of impure
altruism characterizes backers that seek satisfaction, joy, and sense of
belonging to be achieved with their donations. They suggest that despite
accounting for only a marginal share of global crowdfunding volumes,
donation crowdfunding is a unique model for supporting a wide range of
prosocial and charitable causes, while allowing fundraisers to leverage
benefits afforded by ICT solutions for more effective and efficient fund-
raising. The chapter provides an overview of the limited research available
in the context of donation crowdfunding while highlighting donor moti-
vations and behaviour, as well as drivers of success in donation campaigns.
Once the various models are outlined in detail, and the state of both
research and practice concerning each are presented, the two chapters
that follow shift towards the normative view of crowdfunding. Here, in
Chap. 7, Shneor & Torjesen present one of the first discussions of ethical
issues in crowdfunding practice from multiple stakeholders’ perspective.
Here, the authors draw on ethical principles outlined in both classical
and business-specific approaches and discuss whether crowdfunding
presents an ethical solution or a source of ethical problems. To further
anchor the discussion, a framework classifying potential ethical dilemmas
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 11

and pitfalls in crowdfunding practice, as well as potential means for

addressing them, is developed for each relevant stakeholder. This frame-
work may both guide practitioner’s practice, as well as serve as a theoreti-
cal basis for research on ethical practices in crowdfunding.
Furthermore, in Chap. 8, Cai and colleagues acknowledge that since
financial crowdfunding involves a range of risks, it requires comprehen-
sive governance mechanisms. In this chapter, the authors build a three-­
level stylized model to explain how legal institutions and social capital at
the macro, meso, and micro levels affect the performance of crowdfund-
ing campaigns and the development of the financial crowdfunding mar-
ket. Such discussion results in highlighting the critical roles of platforms
in enforcing laws and building social capital at both the meso and micro
levels are highlighted.
In the second part of the book, readers are encouraged to take a step
back in order to look forward with two chapters reviewing crowdfunding
in a historical perspective. Chapter 9 examines crowdfunding develop-
ment in the context of the financial industry. Here, Kallio & Vuola build
on the view that the history of financial markets is marked by continuous
fluctuations between economic cycles, which are often caused by struc-
tures that enable opportunism and moral hazards. Every crisis contains
the seeds of change, but also risks for regulative overreactions. Accordingly,
crowdfunding as a form of financing is part of this series of innovations
in financial markets. Hence, this chapter gives a historical overview of
crowdfunding as part of the history of the ever-changing modern finan-
cial markets.
A different perspective, more anchored in the historical evolution of
technology, places crowdfunding in the context of Financial Technology
(FinTech). Such narrative is outlined in Chap. 10, where Griffiths gives an
overview of how the financial services sector, especially banking, was a
driver for ICT development in the last quarter of the twentieth century,
and early years of this century. The chapter examines the conditions that
have led banks to “get their eyes off the ball” and open the window for a
whole new industrial sector to emerge, namely—Fintech. Furthermore, a
framework consisting of a double-entry table where one dimension is
financial services functionality and the other technological applications,
is suggested for helping readers understand the diversity within the
12 R. Shneor et al.

industrial organization of the sector. More specifically, crowdfunding

occupies two positions on the functional dimension of this framework:
Alternative Finance, and Investment Opportunities.
In the third part of the book, a series of chapters geographically con-
textualize the crowdfunding industry development while considering rel-
evant drivers, barriers, and growth trajectories, as well as highlighting
context particularities. In Chap. 11, Zhao & Li discuss the unique condi-
tions and development trends of crowdfunding in China, the world’s
largest crowdfunding market by far. The authors discuss crowdfunding in
China from the perspectives of different stakeholders (platforms, fund-
raisers, funders, and regulators) and crowdfunding models (reward-based,
equity-based, loan-based, and donation-based). Overall, they suggest
that while the Chinese crowdfunding market has developed rapidly such
development is contrasted with a reality of a relatively underdeveloped
regulatory system and availability of personal credit, which are likely to
limit further growth. Accordingly, some solutions for addressing these
challenges are proposed in this chapter.
Chapter 12 examines crowdfunding market development in the Indian
subcontinent, which represents somewhat of a contrast to rapid dynam-
ics that characterized the Chinese crowdfunding market development.
Here, Suresh and colleagues explore the history, ongoing activity, and
future prospects of crowdfunding in the new emerging markets of India
and Bangladesh. Overall, they observe that India is largely dominating
the crowdfunding activity in the South Asian region, which is otherwise
limited in its neighbouring countries. Such discussion highlights the
social, cultural, and regulatory conditions influencing such developments.
Chapter 13 veers further afield to the African continent. Here, Chao and
colleagues present the current state of crowdfunding research and practice
in Africa while outlining opportunities and challenges associated with
them. The authors suggest that the growing popularity of digital and
mobile finance, low penetration of traditional financial institutions, and a
long cultural heritage of communal support may enhance crowdfunding
uptake in this region. On the other hand, conditions of unclear regulation,
relatively low levels of Internet access, and societies characterized by low
social trust may all hinder such uptake. Accordingly, African crowdfunding
is at its infancy and involves transitory hybrid practices of early adoption,
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 13

often involving reliance on foreign contributors via donations and pro-

social lending platforms.
In Chap. 14, Efrat and colleagues present the crowdfunding market in
Israel, representing a unique national context that despite adversities has
emerged as a regional leader, as well as one of the global leaders, in terms
of both general entrepreneurial finance market, and crowdfunding mar-
ket in particular. The authors argue that crowdfunding has its roots deep
in the Israeli entrepreneurship ecosystem. The characteristics of which
include collective individualism combined with flat hierarchies, low
degree of separation, mandatory army service that enforces innovative
thinking and improvisation, Chutzpah, and finally high tolerance for
failure, all provide fertile ground for entrepreneurship and facilitate inno-
vative approaches to entrepreneurship funding such as crowdfunding.
Chapter 15 ventures further north and reviews the crowdfunding mar-
ket in Europe, while highlighting the various facets of its fragmented
nature. Here, Wenzlaff and colleagues present current market conditions
and argue that fragmentation is mostly caused by differences in national
regulations, which represent an obstacle to industry growth. At the same
time, the European Union has recently introduced the European
Crowdfunding Service Provider (ECSP) regime aiming towards harmo-
nized regulations. This regime is expected to facilitate platform growth
via easier cross-border transactions and international expansion of plat-
forms operating under the business lending and equity investment models.
In part four of the book, three chapters provide insights into unique
aspects of crowdfunding applications for concrete types of campaign
objectives. Chapter 16 focused on using crowdfunding for financing sus-
tainable projects, that is projects aiming to extend their goal beyond mar-
ket success and provide benefit to the larger part of society. Here, Maehle
and colleagues discuss the definition and dimensions of sustainable devel-
opment and entrepreneurship. The chapter provides an overview of the
existing literature on crowdfunding of sustainable projects. The authors
also review four European sustainability-oriented crowdfunding plat-
forms representing different crowdfunding models. This review reveals
that sustainable projects have rather high success rates in crowdfunding
and may address important dimensions of sustainable development. And
while the environmental dimension gets the most attention, pro-social
14 R. Shneor et al.

crowdlending seems to have the highest success rates. Hence, the focus
on a certain sustainability dimension may influence the choice of the
crowdfunding model employed.
Chapter 17 discussed crowdfunding applications in the cultural indus-
tries. In this chapter, Rykkja and colleagues trace the early adoption of
crowdfunding by cultural industries to a comprehensive value chain
reconfiguration in the cultural sector, which were triggered by the advent
of digitalization on the one hand and the downsizing in public funds in
many countries on the other. The authors highlight the importance of
studying crowdfunding in the cultural sector, as it presses creators to
strike a balance between the commercial and the non-commercial, the
economic and the cultural outcomes, as well as the authentic and inde-
pendent versus the mass dictated and dependent. Accordingly, they
review earlier research on cultural crowdfunding, identify core themes
that attracted research attention, and outline an agenda for future
research.
In Chap. 18, Wenzlaff discusses civic crowdfunding, as when crowd-
funding campaigns are used for funding the creation or provision of a
semi-public good. Unlike other crowdfunding practices, civic crowd-
funding creates benefits for people outside of the group of supporters as
well. Such a situation creates unique dilemmas as well as motivations for
participation. This chapter analyses the literature on civic crowdfunding
and proposes to view this through four perspectives: the project, the sup-
porter, the project owner, and the platform. The chapter argues that the
platform is central to understanding the self-positioning of projects, sup-
porters, and project owners within civic crowdfunding.
Finally, the concluding fifth part of the book includes two chapters
addressing future considerations for crowdfunding research and practice.
Chapter 19 highlights the importance of education about crowdfunding
highlighting both its benefits and advantages, as well as its risks and chal-
lenges. Here, Shneor & Flåten argue on the need for crowdfunding educa-
tion, and present a concrete program developed at the University of
Agder as a credit awarding course named the “UiA Crowdfunding Lab”.
This chapter outlines course objectives, content, pedagogy, and assess-
ment issues, while presenting opportunities for further development.
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 15

The book concludes with Chap. 20 which is dedicated to a critical

reflection on current crowdfunding research and practice. Here, Shneor
and colleagues present eight dilemmas that are expected to influence and
shape the future of crowdfunding. Each of which is critically discussed
and followed by suggestions for future research. These dilemmas include
(1) the need to strike a balance between idealism and pragmatism; (2) the
extent to which crowdfunding platforms should cooperate with tradi-
tional financial institutions; (3) how should we measure crowdfunding
success and performance in both financial and socio-economic terms; (4)
the need to strike a balance between quantity and quality in campaigns
approved for publication on platforms; (5) understanding the conditions
and implications of domestic versus international growth of crowdfund-
ing platforms; (6) the responsibility of manoeuvring between facilitation
of collective decisions as crowd wisdom while avoiding crowd madness,
as well as intentional and unintentional harmful crowd behaviour; (7)
whether should platforms focus their technological development on effi-
ciency gains versus community support; as well as (8) how to best inform
the public through educational efforts without constraining our under-
standing of the crowdfunding phenomenon too early.
At this stage, we wish to express our gratitude to all contributors, and
invite readers to explore the rest of the book in greater detail.

References
Belleflamme, P., Lambert, T., & Schwienbacher, A. (2014). Crowdfunding:
Tapping the Right Crowd. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(5), 585–609.
Belleflamme, P., Omrani, N., & Peitz, M. (2015). The Economics of
Crowdfunding Platforms. Information Economics and Policy, 33, 11–28.
Butticè, V., Colombo, M. G., & Wright, M. (2017). Serial Crowdfunding,
Social Capital, and Project Success. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,
41(2), 183–207.
Carvajal, M., García-Avilés, J. A., & González, J. L. (2012). Crowdfunding and
Non-profit Media. Journalism Practice, 6(5-6), 638–647.
Chaney, D. (2019). A Principal–Agent Perspective on Consumer Co-production:
Crowdfunding and the Redefinition of Consumer Power. Technological
Forecasting and Social Change, 141, 74–84.
16 R. Shneor et al.

Chemin, M., & de Laat, J. (2013). Can Warm Glow Alleviate Credit Market
Failures? Evidence from Online Peer-to-Peer Lenders. Economic Development
and Cultural Change, 61(4), 825–858.
Cumming, D. J., Leboeuf, G., & Schwienbacher, A. (2019). Crowdfunding
Models: Keep-It-All vs. All-Or-Nothing. Financial Management, https://doi.
org/10.1111/fima.12262
De Buysere, K., Gajda, O., Kleverlaan, R., et al. (2012). A Framework for
European Crowdfunding. Retrieved from https://www.fundraisingschool.it/
wp-content/uploads/2013/02/European-Crowdfunding-Framework-
Oct-2012.pdf.
Dorfleitner, G., Hornuf, L., & Weber, M. (2018). Dynamics of Investor
Communication in Equity Crowdfunding. Electronic Markets,
28(4), 523–540.
Frydrych, D., Bock, A. J., Kinder, T., et al. (2014). Exploring Entrepreneurial
Legitimacy in Reward-Based Crowdfunding. Venture Capital, 16(3), 247–269.
Gerber, E. M., & Hui, J. (2013). Crowdfunding: Motivations and Deterrents
for Participation. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction,
20(6), 1–32.
Gerber, E. M., Hui, J. S., & Kuo, P.-Y. (2012). Crowdfunding: Why People Are
Motivated to Post and Fund Projects on Crowdfunding Platforms. Retrieved
from http://www.juliehui.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/CSCW_
Crowdfunding_Final.pdf.
Hobbs, J., Grigore, G., & Molesworth, M. (2016). Success in the Management
of Crowdfunding Projects in the Creative Industries. Internet Research,
26(1), 146–166.
Kang, M., Gao, Y., Wang, T., et al. (2016). Understanding the Determinants of
Funders’ Investment Intentions on Crowdfunding Platforms: A Trust-Based
Perspective. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 116(8), 1800–1819.
Kshetri, N. (2015). Success of Crowd-Based Online Technology in Fundraising:
An Institutional Perspective. Journal of International Management,
21(2), 100–116.
Macht, S. A., & Weatherston, J. (2015). Academic Research on Crowdfunders:
What’s Been Done and What’s to Come? Strategic Change, 24(2), 191–205.
Martínez-Climent, C., Zorio-Grima, A., & Ribeiro-Soriano, D. (2018).
Financial Return Crowdfunding: Literature Review and Bibliometric
Analysis. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal,
14(3), 527–553.
 1 Introduction: From Fundamentals to Advances… 17

McKenny, A. F., Allison, T. H., Ketchen, D. J., et al. (2017). How Should
Crowdfunding Research Evolve? A Survey of the Entrepreneurship Theory
and Practice Editorial Board. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,
41(2), 291–304.
Mollick, E. (2014). The Dynamics of Crowdfunding: An Exploratory Study.
Journal of Business Venturing, 29(1), 1–16.
Moritz, A., & Block, J. H. (2016). Crowdfunding: A Literature Review and
Research Directions. In D. Bruntje & O. Gajda (Eds.), Crowdfunding in
Europe: State of the Art in Theory and Practice. London: Springer.
Ryu, S., & Kim, Y.-G. (2016). A Typology of Crowdfunding Sponsors: Birds of
a Feather Flock Together? Electronic Commerce Research and Applications,
16, 43–54.
Ryu, S., & Kim, Y.-G. (2018). Money Is Not Everything: A Typology of
Crowdfunding Project Creators. The Journal of Strategic Information Systems,
27(4), 350–368.
Schwienbacher, A., & Larralde, B. (2012). Crowdfunding of Small
Entrepreneurial Ventures. In D. Cumming (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of
Entrepreneurial Finance. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Shneor, R., & Flåten, B.-T. (2015). Opportunities for Entrepreneurial
Development and Growth Through Online Communities, Collaboration,
and Value Creating and Co-creating Activities. In H. R. Kaufmann &
S. M. R. Shams (Eds.), Entrepreneurial Challenges in the 21st Century.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Shneor, R., & Munim, Z. H. (2019). Reward Crowdfunding Contribution as
Planned Behaviour: An Extended Framework. Journal of Business Research,
103, 56–70.
Shneor, R., & Vik, A. A. (2020). Crowdfunding Success: A Systematic Literature
Review 2010–2017. Baltic Journal of Management, 15(2), 149–182.
Short, J. C., Ketchen, D. J., McKenny, A. F., Allison, T. H., & Ireland,
R. D. (2017). Research on Crowdfunding: Reviewing the (Very Recent) Past
and Celebrating the Present. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,
41(2), 149–160.
Steigenberger, N. (2017). Why Supporters Contribute to Reward-Based
Crowdfunding. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research,
23(2), 336–353.
Thies, F., Wessel, M., & Benlian, A. (2018). Network Effects on Crowdfunding
Platforms: Exploring the Implications of Relaxing Input Control. Information
Systems Journal, 28(6), 1239–1262.
18 R. Shneor et al.

Thürridl, C., & Kamleitner, B. (2016). What Goes Around Comes Around?
Rewards as Startegic Assets in Crowdfunding. California Management Review,
58(2), 88–110.
Wald, A., Holmesland, M., & Efrat, K. (2019). It Is Not All About Money:
Obtaining Additional Benefits Through Equity Crowdfunding. The Journal
of Entrepreneurship, 28(2), 270–294.
Wang, T., Liu, X., Kang, M., et al. (2018). Exploring the Determinants of
Fundraisers’ Voluntary Information Disclosure on Crowdfunding Platforms:
A Risk-Perception Perspective. Online Information Review, 42(3), 324–342.
Ziegler, T., Shneor, R., Wenzlaff, K., et al. (2019). Shifting Paradigms—The 4th
European Alternative Finance Benchmarking Report. Cambridge: Cambridge
Centre for Alternative Finance.
Ziegler, T., Shneor, R., Wenzlaff, K., et al. (2020). The Global Alternative
Finance Benchmarking Report. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Centre for
Alternative Finance.

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction
in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original
author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence and
indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the
chapter’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line
to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons
licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds
the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copy-
right holder.
 Part I
The Current State of Crowdfunding
 2
Crowdfunding Models, Strategies,
and Choices Between Them
Rotem Shneor

Introduction
During the last decade, the emergence and growing popularity of crowd-
funding were manifested and promoted through the proliferation of
thousands of online crowdfunding platforms worldwide. A crowdfund-
ing platform is “an internet application bringing together project owners
and their potential backers, as well as facilitating exchanges between
them, according to a variety of business models” (Shneor and Flåten
2015, p. 188). According to Méric et al. (2016) most platforms have the
following characteristics in common: first, providing fundraisers with
campaign presentation formats for their project, which is accessible to all
online users; second, allowing small to medium sized financial transac-
tions that enable widespread participation while keeping risks within rea-
sonable limit; and, third, provide relevant financial information about

R. Shneor (*)
School of Business and Law, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
e-mail: rotem.shneor@uia.no

© The Author(s) 2020 21

R. Shneor et al. (eds.), Advances in Crowdfunding,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46309-0_2
22 R. Shneor

the campaign and its progress, as well as communication tools for inter-
action between prospective backers and fundraisers. In addition, some
platforms also provide advice, social media PR functionalities, as well as
referrals to other supporting services (ibid.).
The operation of platforms is overseen by regulation in each national
jurisdiction (Gajda 2017). In addition, self-regulation is also evident
through codes of conduct developed by industry associations for their
member platforms (Wenzlaff and Odorovic 2020), as well as in rules and
procedures developed by platforms themselves for own campaign approval
and user verification. Nevertheless, dependency on legal compliance
often results in a more constrained scope of operation both in geographi-
cal and functional terms. Here, while some platforms have developed
into global giants (i.e. Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Gofundme, etc.) or regional
actors (i.e. Latvia-based Mintos covering Eastern Europe, Finland-based
Investor covering the Nordic countries, etc.), thus far, most platforms
remain local and have a domestic focus or very limited international
scope of activities (regulatory and international aspects of platform oper-
ations will be covered in greater detail in later chapters).
At this stage, it is also worth noting that in addition to platforms,
crowdfunding activity also exists in the form of ‘individual crowdfunding
campaigns’ (Belleflamme et al. 2013), which are individual- or
organization-­specific fundraising efforts carried outside formal platform
control and oversight. However, due to the latter’s sporadic nature, non-­
systematic approach, and limited scope within private networks, most
research documents crowdfunding with respect to platform activities and
not with respect to individual campaigning efforts.
In the current chapter we present crowdfunding model types and their
different characteristics. This will be followed by a discussion of how fun-
draisers may choose the best crowdfunding model for their own project’s
fundraising needs. The chapter will then conclude by highlighting its
main contributions, limitations, as well as implications for research and
practice.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
eight a.m. and five p.m. is quite incredible. I have always kept an
exact record, in my register of negatives, of all details of weather and
light, but nevertheless I have not escaped failure—so difficult is it to
judge the intensity of light in the tropics. One night, one may have
the satisfaction of finding, when developing the day’s work, that by
good luck all the exposures have been right. Next day the weather is
precisely the same—you take the same stop, and expose for the same
length of time—and yet, when evening comes, you find that every
plate is over or under exposed. This is not exhilarating. Then there is
the perpetual worry about the background. Unfortunately, I have
brought no isochromatic plates; but the want of them is partly
supplied by a huge tarpaulin which I originally took with me to cover
my baggage at night, but which never served this purpose. Even
before leaving Masasi, we fastened it between two bamboo poles, and
covered one side of it with one or two lengths of sanda. Since then I
have always used it in photographing when the sun is high, to screen
off a too-strongly illuminated background. And if nothing else will
serve, the strongest of my men hold the screen over the object, when
I find myself obliged to take an important photograph with the sun
directly overhead.
Next come the phonograph cylinders. The extremely high
temperature of the lowlands has deprived me of the opportunity of
making some valuable records—a loss which must be borne with
what philosophy I can summon to my aid. It is the easier to do so,
that, in spite of the drawbacks referred to, I have only five left out of
my five-dozen cylinders, and for these, too, I can find an excellent
use; to-morrow they shall be covered with the finest Nyamwezi
melodies. As to the cinematograph, I must remember that I am a
pioneer, and as such must not only incur all the inconvenience
involved in the imperfections of an industry as yet in its infancy, but
take the risk of all the dangers which threaten gelatine films in the
tropics. It certainly does not dispose one to cheerfulness, when
Ernemann writes from Dresden that my last consignment of films
has again proved a failure; but I have given over worrying over things
of this sort, ever since my vexation at the fall of my 9 x 12 cm. camera
let me in for the severe fever I went through at Chingulungulu.
Besides, I know, by those I have developed myself, that about two-
thirds of my thirty-eight cinematograph records must be fairly good,
or at least good enough to use, and that is a pretty fair proportion for
a beginner. Over twenty such imperishable documents of rapidly
disappearing tribal life and customs—I am quite disposed to
congratulate myself!
But my chief ground for pride is the quantity, and even more the
quality of my ethnological and sociological notes, which surely will
not be an entirely valueless contribution to our knowledge of the East
African native. As a stranger in the country, I could not, of course, in
the short time at my disposal, survey all the departments of native
life, but I have made detailed studies of a great many. I must not
forget my exceptional good fortune with regard to the unyago; the
elucidation of these mysteries would alone have amply repaid the
journey.
To conclude with my ethnographic collection. In the Congo basin,
and in West Africa I should probably, in the same space of time, have
been able, without any difficulty, to get together a small ship-load of
objects, while here in the East a collection of under two thousand
numbers represents the material culture of tribes covering a whole
province. The number of individual specimens might, indeed, have
been increased, but not that of categories, so thoroughly have I
searched the native villages and rummaged their huts one by one.
After all, the East African native is a poor man.
But what is the use of speculating as to what is attainable or
unattainable? The sun is shining brightly, the woods are fresh and
green after the shower, and some of the askari are lounging against
the palisade in a picturesque if untidy group. The metamorphosis
undergone by our native warrior in the course of the day is certainly
surprising. Smart and active on the drill-ground—they look on their
drill as a kind of game, and call it playing at soldiers—he is just the
reverse, from our German point of view, in the afternoon and
evening.
It must be acknowledged that he knows how to make himself
comfortable when off duty. He has his boy to wait on him, even to
take his gun from his hand the moment the word has been given to
“dismiss”; and the respect commanded, in Africa as elsewhere, by
anything in the shape of a uniform secures him the best of everything
wherever he goes. He lounges through the hot hours on his host’s
most commodious bedstead, and, when evening comes on, sallies
forth in fatigue dress to captivate the girls of the place. They are less
charming, it is true, than those of Lindi, but a man has to take what
he can get. The slovenly figures in the photograph are those of
Lumbwula and the Nubian Achmed Mohammed, taking their ease in
this fashion.
My release from work and worry has worked miracles,
physiologically speaking;—I sleep in my bed like a hibernating bear,
wield a mighty knife and fork at table and increase in circumference
almost perceptibly from day to day. Moreover, we have been living
fairly well for the last few weeks. The first case of porter was followed
by a second, and various other delights came up at the same time
from Lindi—genuine unadulterated milk from the blessed land of
Mecklenburg, fresh pumpernickel, new potatoes from British East
Africa, tinned meats and fruits in abundance, and so forth. The lean
weeks of Newala are forgotten, and our not much more luxurious
sojourn at Chingulungulu recedes into the misty past. The evenings,
too, are pleasant and leisurely. As decreed by a kindly destiny, I find
that I have still some plates left, but no chemicals for developing and
fixing, so that I can photograph as much as I like, while compelled to
dispense with the trying work of developing the plates in the close
tent. Omari has provided a spatchcocked fowl for our evening meal,
which smells inviting and tastes delicious. He has here revived for
our benefit the primitive process of roasting already known to
prehistoric man, which consists of simply holding the meat over the
fire till done. Only one innovation has been introduced: after
splitting up the carcase of the fowl, Omari has rubbed salt and
pepper into it. This, though historically incorrect, improves the
flavour so much that it is quite a pardonable piece of vandalism.
Here come my carriers, issuing with clean clothes and radiant
faces from their temporary lodgings in one of the thatched huts of
the boma. They know that in the next few days we are going on
safari again, the goal in view being this time the eagerly anticipated
paradise of the coast. And they will be receiving uncounted sums of
money at Lindi. Many a time have they grumbled at the Bwana
Mkubwa, because he refused them an advance, when they wanted so
very much to make a present to some pretty girl in a neighbouring
village. They had even been directly asked for such presents, but the
Bwana Pufesa made a point of saying to any man who wanted a trifle
of a loan, “Nenda zako”—(“Be off with you”). He was very hard, was
the Bwana Pufesa, but it was best so, after all; for now we shall get
all the money paid down at once—it must be over forty rupees. What
times we shall have at Lindi—not to mention Dar es Salam! And we
will go to the Indian’s store and buy ourselves visibau finer even than
the ones sported by those apes of Waswahili.
The crimson glow of the sunset is still lingering on the western
horizon, while the full moon is rising in the east, behind the great
spreading tree, under which my camera has been planted day after
day for the last few weeks; and I am watching the spectacle, stretched
comfortably in my long chair, and at the same time listening to the
chant of the Wanyamwezi.

With the deep notes characteristic of the Wanyamwezi, the chant

penetrates the ear of the European listener. My men have often sung
it at Newala, at Majaliwa’s, and here at Mahuta, always
accompanying the rhythm of the song with equally rhythmical
movements. It is a hoeing-song. The Mnyamwezi going out into the
fields with his hoe is provided with a whole repertoire of such songs;
the body bends and rises in regular time as the broad blade crunches
its way through the soil, and the chant of labour sounds softly and
harmoniously over the wide plain. At this moment, when the men are
squatting round me in picturesque groups, they snap their fingers in
time with great spirit and energy, instead of going through the
motions of hoeing.
The air is pleasing enough and insensibly steals into the
consciousness of the listening European, carrying him away from the
harsh, raw nature of Africa to the ancient civilisation of his native
land, which the busy days now left behind have left him little leisure
to recall. As Pesa mbili’s clear baritone alternates with the deep-
toned chorus I recall the blacksmith at the forge, seeking the rhythm
in his strokes which keeps his arm from tiring so soon in wielding the
heavy hammer. It takes me back, too, to my boyhood, when few if
any small farmers owned a threshing machine, and I used to hear
from our neighbour’s barn the triple and quadruple time of the flails.
The same sort of rhythm, too, is heard in our streets, above the bustle
and noise of traffic, when the paviours are ramming down the stones,
—ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping,—each note louder or softer
according to the degree of force employed, but all in the strictest
time. This rhythm is the outcome of a need inherent in human
nature: it precedes, indeed it is indispensable to, any sustained
bodily exertion. This is felt even by civilized people, as we see when
the striking-up of the band puts new life and vigour into the tired
legs of a marching regiment, or when a number of men are engaged
in moving a heavy load; and it is true in a much greater degree of the
African. I am convinced that he cannot accomplish the easiest task
unless he accompanies it with a rapidly improvised chant; even the
heavily-ironed convicts in the chain-gangs, push or pull their
barrows to a continuous antiphonal chant. Thus, too, when a number
of people are hoeing a field together, the work becomes a game in
which the body spontaneously falls into the rhythmic motions of the
dance; but no dance is without its song.
The song comes to an end with a long-drawn kweli (“it is true”).
The Wanyamwezi are famed for their endurance, both in marching
and singing, and the above performance has lasted for a considerable
time. But after a short pause the indefatigable Pesa mbili begins
again,—this time with my favourite melody, Kulya mapunda.
 The singing has exercised its usual fascination on the European
auditor, he is sitting upright and vigorously joining in, to the delight
of the performers. This hasimpo, as it is usually called for brevity’s
sake, is sung to accompany a dance. In the hoeing-song the tune and
the words, so far as I have been able to translate the latter, show
some degree of congruity with each other, but I cannot as yet make
head or tail of what Pesa mbili has to-day dictated to me as the gist of
this hasimpo song. For the sake of completeness I will first give my
attempt at the translation of the hilala.
“Work, work. The headman will weep for his son. They love the
white ombasha, he is strong. Thanks, the son has prophesied. Oh!
blockhead that I am! my mother is going away, the children are
crying. Do not cry, do not cry, do not cry.”
As will be seen, it is confused enough, but at least some parts
appear to have a connected sense, and the sililo “do not weep,” thrice
repeated, sounds rather touching. It is less easy to fit the ombasha—
the corporal—into the framework of the song; but who shall fathom
the profundities of the African mind? especially when it is the mind
of a poet.
 The dancing song is as follows:—
“The Wairamba are eating vegetables—they are eating vegetables, I
say, at the well. When you get home, salute my mother, and tell her I
am coming. So I said and the police seized the devil. We set down our
loads of cloth and beads and yet again beads. The sun is going down,
the time for dancing is at an end.”
Here again the reference to the mother is a pathetic touch, but the
police and the nature of their association with the Prince of Darkness
must remain a mystery.
Now comes the song of the Standard:—

It is the chant of the Long Trail—the glorification of travel for its

own sake,—the element as necessary to the Mnyamwezi as his ugali:
—“O journey! O journey with the great master, O (delightful)
journey! He will give cloth to the young men—O journey, O beautiful
journey!”
The deep bass notes have died away slowly, almost mournfully,
and the men are visibly growing sleepy; in fact, it is nearly ten, by
which hour they are usually rolled up in their mats and dreaming of
home. A questioning glance from Pesa mbili induces me to give the
signal; the whole band vanishes almost without a sound, and I am
left alone. Really alone, for Knudsen has been away for some days,
hunting in the valley. The people there sent him word that numbers
of elephants had been seen, and after that there was no keeping him
back. He hurried off at such a pace that his cook, Latu, and his boy,
Wanduwandu, a splendid big Yao, could scarcely follow him. He was
to have returned at noon to-day. I wonder what has detained him.
 CHAPTER XVIII
MY RETURN TO THE COAST

Lindi, towards the end of November, 1906.

With all respect to my camp bed, I find that I can sleep much more
comfortably on the couch provided here by the Imperial District
Commissioner, with its three-foot-six mattress and spacious
mosquito-net: luxuries which I have been enjoying for the last week,
having marched into Lindi with flying colours on November 17th,
after a toilsome and difficult journey.
The outward aspect of the little town is much the same as when I
left it in July, but the European population has changed to a
surprising degree. Hardly any of the old residents are left, but the
number of new arrivals from Germany is so great that there is some
difficulty in getting lodgings. If we were in an English colony, I
should say that there is just now a boom at Lindi; as it is, we may say
that capital has discovered the southern districts and is setting about
their economic exploitation. It is said that all the good land in the
neighbourhood of Lindi is already taken up, and later comers will
perforce have to put up with more distant estates. While personally
delighted to hear that the southern province, which has become very
dear to me in the course of my stay, is thus prospering, I am too
much occupied with my own affairs to have any further concern in
these transactions.
First came the paying off of the numerous extra carriers whom I
had been obliged to hire for the transport of the collections made at
Mahuta. The amount paid out was not great, as the recipients had
not been called upon to perform an excessive amount of work. All
over the Makonde plateau I found that the carriers who arrived in
time for the start on any given day, marched with the caravan as far
as that night’s halting-place, but as regularly disappeared before the
next morning, in spite of the sentries posted all round our camp. This
unreliability caused me much vexation and loss of temper, besides
the waste of time in engaging fresh men; but, on the other hand, I
saved, in every such case, the day’s wages, which these deserters
never gave me the chance of paying them. After passing the Kiheru
valley and getting into the Yao country we had no more trouble, the
men there being quite willing to go as far as the coast.
My Wanyamwezi carriers have already left for the north. On the
23rd I saw them on board the steamer, a much larger and finer boat
than the Rufiji in which they suffered such misery on the down trip.
Probably they are indulging in happy dreams of a speedy return to
their far inland homes, and of the way in which they mean to lay out
the capital knotted into their waistcloths; but in reality they will
probably, on the day after landing, find themselves starting on a
fresh expedition with the “chop-boxes” of some other white man on
their heads. At this time, just before the rains, carriers are very
scarce, and they are sure to be seized on at once. I am thus
dependent for packing my collections—the cases previously sent
down to the coast having been stored in the cellars of the
Government offices, where they have remained undisturbed except
by the innumerable rats—on myself and my remaining men. Among
these, for the time being, I can still reckon Knudsen, who lends a
hand right willingly, in spite of his melancholy looks. He does not
like the coast; he says the damp climate is too soft for him, and he
cannot get on with the white men. He is better accustomed to the
washenzi in the bush, who neither worry him nor look down on him.
He is only waiting till I have left for the north, before going west once
more after antelope and elephant.
“Why, I thought you had had enough of that sort of thing,” was my
well-meant remark, as I glanced at his right arm, of which, he says,
he has not yet recovered the full use. It is a terrible story.
I was sitting at dinner one afternoon, trying to eat some
mysterious compound out of a Portuguese tin, which proved on
examination to be bacon and beans (probably a part of the stores
originally laid in for Vasco da Gama’s expedition), when I heard
Moritz’s nasal voice announcing, “Bwana mdogo anakuja” (“Mr.
Knudsen is coming”). I turned round and saw him dragging himself
along with uncertain steps; he was covered with dust, his clothes
were torn, and his right arm in a sling.
“Well, old Nimrod, has the elephant tusked you?” I called out to
him, not taking matters very seriously.
“Not that. I only fell and broke my arm—but my poor
Wanduwandu is dead. He died just now;—here they come with him.”
In fact at this moment I saw a group of men busy over something
at the narrow door of the boma; but the crowd was too great to see
what it was. My first care was to attend to Knudsen’s arm, which was
badly swollen, though I could discover no indication of a fracture.
The only thing to be done, therefore, was to apply cold water
bandages and support the arm in as easy a position as possible.
Knudsen dropped into his chair like a log and sank into gloomy
thought, while I went to look at the corpse. It was laid out on a
kitanda or native bedstead, under a shady tree at the other end of the
boma, and scantily covered with a cloth; the mouth was open, the
glassy eyes staring vacantly. Hemedi Maranga came up and closed
them, while I examined the injuries. I could find no serious wound;
the tips of the fingers were crushed and bleeding, and the skin
slightly grazed on the left temple, which also showed a moderate-
sized swelling, but that was all. Notwithstanding this, the Wali and I
agreed that the swelling must indicate the cause of death, and on
feeling the head, we found that the skull was broken. The man must
have received a terrible blow, but a blow with some soft object,
otherwise the outside of the head would have been shattered.
The afternoon brought plenty of work. The dead man was sewn up
in a piece of the sanda I had, in accordance with custom, brought
with me, never dreaming that I should have to apply it to its
traditional use. The grave was dug outside the boma just beyond the
crest of the hill. I had fixed the time of the funeral at sunset; but
about three I found that Wanduwandu’s friends and relations,
thinking this too long to wait, had carried off the corpse in order to
proceed with the obsequies on their own account; so that I had to
send off my fleetest runner with orders to have it brought back again.
At six my whole troop was drawn up on funeral parade. Here, too, I
noticed the instinctive tact of the native; every man was in full-dress
uniform, though I had given no orders to that effect, and Hemedi
Maranga was wearing his medal. Of all the natives with whom I have
come in contact, Wanduwandu attracted me most; he was a splendid
figure of a man, the only one I ever saw who exemplified the
“Herculean build” one so often hears of. At the same time he was
quiet, dignified, and yet fully conscious of his strength. He had
accompanied the expedition for some months, liked by all and hated
by none. I felt it quite a matter of course that I should put on a clean
white suit to convoy him on his last journey, though he was “only” a
native.
I had already seen and photographed a number of Yao graves, but,
apart from human sympathy, I was naturally interested in witnessing
a native funeral, and therefore did not attempt to interfere in the
least with the people’s arrangements. The grave had been dug of the
same shape as in Europe, but much shallower, being not much over a
yard in depth; and the men had also made it much too short. Two of
the bystanders at once came forward to lengthen it, while the corpse
was waiting to be lowered; but not altogether successfully, for if in
future times any excavations are undertaken on that spot a skeleton
will be found lying on its side, with the knees drawn up in a squatting
position.[70] Mats were spread over the body to prevent its coming in
contact with the bare earth, which the native likes to avoid, even in
death. Now, however, comes an exotic touch. Daudi, the native
pastor from Chingulungulu, had been with us for some days, having
been sent for by me, that I might talk over some points in my notes
with him. Wanduwandu had remained a heathen; in fact, when
Knudsen and I, as we often did, asked him, teasingly, whether he
would not rather become a Muslim, or even a Christian, he always
shook his head with a calm air of superiority, and said that what was
good enough for his fathers was good enough for him. Nevertheless,
Daudi was in attendance at the grave, and now spoke a few words in
Swahili, in which I clearly distinguished, “Udongo kwa udongo,
majivu kwa majivu” (“Earth to earth, ashes to ashes”). A few boys—I
had not previously known that there were any Christians at Mahuta
—then sang a short hymn in hushed, grave voices, as the sun sank
glowing in the west; Daudi softly uttered a prayer, and the first
shovelfuls of yellow sand fell with a dull sound on the wrappings of
the corpse. My soldiers marched away in precise order, the rest of the
crowd followed, laughing and joking. Death? What more is there to
say about it? It may happen any day; that cannot be helped. Kismet!
 To-day, the visitor to Mahuta will find on the spot referred to, a
plain, low, but well-built structure—a thatched roof supported on
posts, and looking accurately east and west, with pieces of coloured
calico fluttering in the breeze from its ridge-pole. This marks
Wanduwandu’s grave.

WANDUWANDU’S GRAVE

But it was only after the funeral was over that Nils Knudsen’s
mourning really began. In his speculative way, he has been brooding
over the cause of death. It was directly caused—there can be no
doubt about that—by the elephant, a huge, solitary brute—a “rogue,”
in fact. Knudsen first fired a couple of shots at him, and then his
followers, people from the Nkundi plain, poured a whole volley from
their muzzle-loaders on the unlucky beast. The elephant sank on his
knees, but pulled himself up again with his trunk, and charged the
hunters. All at once made for the rendezvous agreed on, but Knudsen
fell while running, spraining his arm and losing his gun, which was
flung into the bushes by the shock of his fall. When, after some time,
they missed Wanduwandu, Knudsen returned to the scene of the
encounter and heard a low groaning. He thought at first that it
proceeded from the wounded elephant, but soon found his faithful
follower lying senseless under a heap of branches. Knudsen did not
notice whether the elephant’s tracks passed close to this spot or not,
and indeed even now he does not clearly recollect the details of the
tragedy. It may be assumed with tolerable certainty that
Wanduwandu, who had the reputation of a brave, even a rash
hunter, crossed the track of the infuriated animal and was struck
down. The blood spoor of the elephant was lost in the bush.
This, then, is the direct cause of death, and for matter-of-fact
Europeans it would be quite enough, but in this country it is
otherwise. “It is that confounded fat woman’s fault; she deceived him
once before, and I expect she has been at the same games again.”
Such is the conclusion arrived at by Nils, who has quite fallen into
native ways of thinking. My researches at Chingulungulu had
revealed to me the universality of the belief that if a man’s wife is
unfaithful to him while he is hunting elephants in the bush, he will
be sure to meet with a fatal accident. I was told of a number of cases
which had actually happened, and even the names of the people
concerned. Wanduwandu’s wife is a buxom woman who, according
to native ideas, is strikingly handsome—rotundity and beauty being
equivalent terms in this country—and wears a nose-pin of unusual
size and beautifully inlaid. It is therefore quite natural that she
should be much admired, and, taking this circumstance in
connection with her husband’s violent death, for these African
intellects, and for Nils Knudsen as well, the logical inference is that,
because the man has been killed his wife must have betrayed him.
It will be understood that I was at first very sceptical as to this
interpretation; but I must now confess that there is really something
in it, only that the links in the chain of cause and effect follow each
other in a somewhat different order of time. The woman is, as a
matter of fact, indirectly responsible for her husband’s death.
Knudsen now remembers that Wanduwandu was strangely excited
and reckless throughout the expedition, and I have heard from other
quarters that the plump wife has always been a great coquette, and
that there was a violent scene between the couple immediately before
his departure. Here we have the key to the whole enigma; the
elephant did not kill the hunter who in his confusion blundered into
his way, because the man’s wife was at that moment flirting with
another, but because the wife’s behaviour had already driven the
man almost to desperation. In any case it is instructive to see how
occurrences of this sort, several times repeated, come to be accepted
as laws of nature.
Wanduwandu’s death did not change the date of our departure,
which was already fixed; but it was noticeable that even our men
were more eager to get away than before.
After the tragedy Knudsen found himself engaged in an obstinate
contest with the widow, who, taking advantage of the situation, tried
to bind him by contract—on the ground that he after all was the only
one to blame for her husband’s death—to supply her with six new
dresses a year. On the other side he was attacked by the relatives of
the deceased, who suddenly appeared in swarms, like vultures, and
demanded the arrears of pay due to him. But it was a case of Greek
meeting Greek, and Nils finally decided to pay over the money to the
widow. I thought that, in that case, she would be murdered before
she reached Mchauru, and suggested that he should send a
messenger to deposit the money with Matola, as the headman of
Wanduwandu’s native district. It was explained to the woman that
she could claim her property—it amounted to the enormous sum of
four rupees and three quarters—whenever she might so desire; but
probably she failed to understand this. At any rate, on her departure,
which took place on the day after Knudsen’s final refusal to contract
for an annual supply of clothing, the cook, Latu, missed a quantity of
ground-nuts and some other eatables from his master’s stores. “Let
her just come again, that’s all!” said Nils, outwardly indignant, but in
reality visibly relieved. There is no ground for uneasiness; such a
beauty is not likely to remain long unwooed in a country like this,
and in all probability she is married again by this time.
Notwithstanding this, Nils still urges our departure.
Another circumstance has been making my stay at Mahuta less
and less agreeable. Even at Nchichira the daily devotions of the
headman and other Muhammadans had been a trial, beginning
before daybreak and repeated at noon and evening. Here the
adherents of the Prophet are more numerous, and their faith more
fervid, besides which we are now well into Ramadan. If my men are
amusing me with their songs, or themselves with new ngoma dances,
which they have an astonishing facility in inventing, their noise
drowns the muttering and whining of the nineteen or twenty
devotees under the Wali’s baraza. But if the latter can be heard
alone, the effect is simply terrible. The Wali leads the exercises; his
voice is not in any case melodious, but when uttering itself in Arabic
gutturals, it fairly gets on one’s nerves, especially when the noise
goes on till after ten at night. Unfortunately it is quite impossible to
interfere, even if my principles as to religious toleration did not
forbid it. However, I made an energetic and successful protest
against the Wali’s habit of conversing at the top of his voice for a
considerable time after dismissing his congregation, and all the time
spitting copiously into the middle of the boma square. I told him that
so long as I was in the place I was the Bwana mkubwa, and it was
my business to determine what was desturi (custom), and what was
not; and I expressly desired that he should cease to disturb my
night’s rest.
Another inducement for a speedy return to the coast was the
opportunity of securing a free passage north for my carriers by the
Kaiser Wilhelm II, which was to leave Lindi for Dar es Salam soon
after November 20. If I kept them with me till my own departure on
December 2, I should not only have to pay a good deal in extra
wages, but also a large sum in steamer-fares for them, as the boat by
which I have taken my passage belongs, not to the Government, but
to a private company. Finally, I desired to spend a short time on the
coast in order to study the records of the criminal courts—the study
of criminal psychology being of the highest importance in
ethnography.
The noise on the morning of November 12 was greater than ever.
My men leapt about the boma like sheep in a panic, and could
scarcely await the word to start. The Wali could not be denied the
privilege of escorting us for a short distance along the road. Not so
his son, a lazy, dirty rascal, who has given us every reason to
remember him by a performance he went through every evening,
when the flag was lowered for the night, seizing it, if he thought
himself unobserved, as it reached the ground, and sneezing into its
folds, or otherwise employing it as a handkerchief.
There is not much to record about the march to Luagala. The
country is level as a billiard-table, but the vegetation is far finer than
on the southern side of the plateau. For two days the road passes
through a splendid forest of large trees; human settlements, and the
horrible scrubby bush inseparable from them being entirely absent.
Shortly before we reach Luagala (which has a boma garrisoned by
half a company and commanded by a lieutenant in the Imperial
Army), the country becomes more hilly, and presents a curious
aspect. As far as the eye can see extend groves of mangoes, loaded
with fruit; but not a soul is visible, nothing but charred ruins of huts
here and there. This is the former domain of Machemba, that
remarkable Yao chieftain who, like the famous Mirambo in
Unyanyembe, was able, by the prestige of his name to gather bands
of daring spirits round him, tyrannize over the whole Makonde
plateau, and even offer effective resistance to the German troops.
The battlefields where he encountered them are still shown to the
traveller. About ten years ago, however, Machemba preferred to
leave the German territory, and has since lived on the other side of
the Rovuma, almost in sight of Nchichira, terrifying the Portuguese
for a change. The old warrior must have been an excellent organizer
in more ways than one; a stupid man would never have thought of
introducing this cultivation on the sandy soil of this particular part of
the plateau. Luagala may be well situated from a strategic point of
view, but as regards its water supply, it is worse off than any
Makonde hamlet. At present all the drinking water has to be fetched
from a place twelve or fifteen miles away.
After the long and elaborate dinner with which Lieutenant Spiegel,
in the joy of his heart at receiving a European, welcomed us, it was a
pleasure on starting once more, to walk through the cool shade of the
forest. The road sloped gently downwards for some time—then the
incline became steeper, and at last the caravan had to climb down an
almost vertical declivity to the Kiheru—a little stream of crystal
clearness. Such water is so rare in East Africa that in my delight I had
already filled my cup and was lifting it to my lips, when Hemedi
Maranga stopped me, saying, “Chungu, Bwana” (“It is bitter, sir”).
Saidi Kapote is already a typical lowland settlement, consisting of
scattered, rectangular houses of some size, with saddle-ridged,
thatched roofs. It suffers as much from the evening gale as the other
villages at the foot of the hills. Hitherto the march down to the coast
has resembled an obstacle-race, as, owing to the trouble with the
carriers already mentioned, we have every morning been late in
starting. Here, too, the Makonde engaged yesterday have vanished
without leaving a trace, and though the headman is able to supply
some men for the most important loads, we must leave behind those
less urgently needed, and trust to his promise to send them on after
us.
The last march but one begins. We are steadily advancing
eastward, along the parallel ranges which stretch in endless
monotony between the Kiheru and the Lukuledi. The caravan is now
very numerous, consisting of over a hundred persons, and in the
sandy soil, which here makes very heavy walking, the line straggles
out to such a length that both ends are never in sight at once.
However, we press onward untiringly, hour after hour. At the
Lukuledi we take a short rest; then on again. At last, about the
middle of the afternoon, after marching more than eight hours, we
camp among extensive palm and mango groves, a short hour’s walk
west of Mrweka. Everyone is quite worn out—too tired to put one
foot before the other; but even the stupidest boy in attendance on the
soldiers tosses uneasily in his dreams—for we shall be at Lindi to-
morrow, and he is looking forward to the splendour and the
enjoyments of this metropolis.
 GREAT NGOMA DANCE IN THE BOMA AT MAHUTA.

Under the star-spangled tropic sky my brave fellows fall in for the
last time, and for the last time the noise of the caravan getting under
way disturbs the silence of the bush on the other side of the deep
ravine in which the Lukuledi flows. In the Indian quarter of Mrweka,
sleepy men, women with nose-rings, and gaudily dressed babies start
up in affright, when the discordant sounds of the horns blown by my
expedition reach their ears. It is quickly growing lighter, when a
khaki-clad figure seizes my mule’s bridle: it is Herr Linder, the
excellent agricultural inspector, who was the last European to say
good-bye to me at Ruaha, and is now the first to welcome me back.
His presence here is a consequence of the boom at Lindi, as he is
engaged in surveying some new plantation or other. We are off again
at a rapid pace, down a slightly inclined slope to the left; the head of
the line stops, those coming up behind him crowd on each other’s
heels; and, on riding up to see what is the matter, I find that a broad
creek bars the way. Being a stranger to the country, I must in this
case be guided by my men. These, lifting their clothes as high as their
shoulders, have waded slowly into the water. My mule resists a little
out of sheer affectation, but soon jogs on bravely after the rest. All
reach the other side without mishap, and, after a short pause to get
the whole party together again, we start in double-quick time for
Ngurumahamba, which is flooded by the springtide, the water having
almost penetrated into the houses.
We have done with the wilderness. The road, still unfinished in
July, is now in its complete state a masterpiece of engineering: it
only wants a few motor cars to be a perfect picture of twentieth-
century civilization. The last halt of any length is at the foot of Kitulo,
where Knudsen insists on taking a photograph of me with a huge
baobab as background, on the ground that I ought to be handed
down to posterity in the garb of an African explorer. My men in the
meantime have been smartening themselves up; and, very
picturesquely grouped among the bales and boxes, they are
scrubbing away at their teeth, which, as it is, could scarcely be
whiter, with a zeal which one would be only too glad to see among
some of our own compatriots. The tooth-brush (mswaki) used by
these natives, is a piece of very fibrous wood, about eight inches long,
and as thick as one’s thumb, which penetrates into every cranny of
the teeth without injuring the enamel, and looks, when in use, like an
enormous cigar. It performs its work well and is free from objection
on the score of hygiene, especially as, a new one being always easily
procurable, it need never remain in use too long.
I have just reached the top of Kitulo, and am looking back for the
last time on that part of interior Africa in which I, too, have now by
hard work won the right to be called an explorer, when Omari, the
cook, comes panting and puffing up the hill, and roars at me as soon
as he comes in sight, “Ndege amekwenda!” (“The bird has got
away!”). In fact, the cage which for some weeks past had contained a
brightly-coloured little bird—a kind of siskin—is now empty; a loose
bar shows how he gained his freedom. How pleasantly, all these
weeks, his song has enlivened the hot, dusty rest-houses in which we
have been living, and made them a little more home-like; and how
grateful he always was for the few heads of millet which sufficed for
his keep. Now, he is off, just at the moment when I was wondering
what to do with my little friend, knowing that he was not likely to
thrive in the cold northern winter, and doubting whether I could
safely entrust him to the first European I came across. His escape at
this moment has cut the knot.
 MY ESCORT CLEANING THEIR TEETH

In close order, the soldiers in section-column, the Imperial Service

flag unfurled to the fresh sea-breeze, we march into Lindi. My
carriers are strangers to the place, and therefore the cries of the
women, which usually greet every caravan making its entry, are few
and far between. Smartly my soldiers wheel into the boma square,
and there, as I am dismounting, stiff with the long ride, I see the first
white man approach; he greets me pleasantly and seems honestly
pleased to see me. A second comes up. “Good gracious! how ill you
look! And as for that mule of yours, if it doesn’t croak before the day
is out I’ll be shot, but you’ll have to pay for it all the same!” My
illusions are rudely shattered. I turn away and beckon to the
corporal, who has been standing a little apart, in correct military
attitude, to come nearer. “You have been good soldiers, and you,
Hemedi Maranga, the best of all. I am going to make a big feast for
you. But now you can go home to your wives.” I shook hands with
him, he gave the word of command, and the next moment the twelve
had disappeared into the barrack-yard, while I went on to my old
quarters. Knudsen is right; after all, it is better among the Washenzi.
I did not see much of my carriers in their few remaining days at
Lindi, but I heard the more. Now their hour has come: the Kaiser
Wilhelm is swinging at anchor out yonder on the river, and will start
to-morrow at daybreak. My men are to go on board this evening at
sunset. I have ordered them to be in front of the post-office (where I